# Abortion: We've been having the wrong argument. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227 "2003-07-22T20:29:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/41 "2003-07-23T20:13:57Z")
> [@](#): > > RL: Not that I disagree with you, but playing devil’s advocate here, mightn’t one argue that the act of having sex is a form of “consent to get pregnant”? What about couples who have birth control methods fail to work? They’re clearly not consenting to pregnancy, and it strikes me as stupid to suggest they are obligated to have a child they don’t want. (I know, I know, you’re speaking hypothetically, but I think seriously making this implication would be stupid.) One problem - and I do mean ONE, because I think there are millions - with opposing abortion and birth control is it makes having a child an obligation (like a punishment: “You had sex, now you have to have a kid. Them’s the breaks, you consented to get pregnant.”) instead of a choice, which is what it should be. ---
**Author:** ![towel2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@towel2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/towel2)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/42 "2003-07-23T20:23:37Z")
my opinion on abortion is this : I am morally against it, and if i got a girl pregnant i would keep it or put it up for adoption. But i cannot choose that for anybody else. Because i think its a human life doesnt make it a human life. Therefore i cant choose the path one person who doesnt think its a human right can take. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/43 "2003-07-23T20:24:58Z")
> [@](#): > > If the mother and father made a mistake and didn’t use birth control, allowing the baby to be conceived, tough. It was their mistake, not the mistake of the baby, and abortion punishes the wrong person for that mistake. I must’ve missed this line, but it’s exactly what I was talking about at the end of my post. In fact, I’d say banning abortion punishes EVERYbody here: it brings an unwanted child into a household and places an burden upon parents who - for reasons physical, emotional, financial, whatever - did not desire a child at that time. To call abortion a “punishment” is to completely - intentionally, I guess- miss the point of what it is and what it is intended to do. How do you punish something that is neither alive nor sentient, with only the possibility of becoming a human being? And for that matter, how do you judge that this potential human has rights that the ACTUAL human being bearing it does not? ---
**Author:** ![greck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ab992/32.png) [@greck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greck)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/44 "2003-07-23T20:29:33Z")
ITS NOT ABOUT WHETHER ABORTION IS RIGHT OR WRONG! It’s about finding the common ground and going from there. Having an abortion is legal. It is that way by popular vote, right or wrong. I’ll still stand behind my belief that nobody WANTS to have an abortion. It’s an option that is taken as the lesser of two evils. Similarly, nobody WANTS anyone to have an abortion. Also, the lesser of two evils. I’d say what’s preferable is not having acheived conception in the first place. In order to create circumstances wherein people don’t abort pregnancies depends on: 1. keeping abortion a legal option. 2. creating a culture wherein people have the resources support and education necessary to avert unwanted pregnancies. 3. The cessation of the current debate about the legality/morality issues surrounding abortion rights. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/45 "2003-07-23T20:39:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Having an abortion is legal. It is that way by popular vote, right or wrong. Actually, _you’re_ wrong here. It’s that way by Supreme Court decision (Roe v. Wade), though a majority of the population supports it. ---
**Author:** ![Illassit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@Illassit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illassit)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/46 "2003-07-23T20:41:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by greck \* > \*\*ITS NOT ABOUT WHETHER ABORTION IS RIGHT OR WRONG! > > In order to create circumstances wherein people don’t abort pregnancies depends on: > > 1. keeping abortion a legal option. > 2. creating a culture wherein people have the resources support and education necessary to avert unwanted pregnancies. > 3. The cessation of the current debate about the legality/morality issues surrounding abortion rights. \*\* But it is about whether abortion is right or wrong and that is precisely why the hardliners of every camp won’t be able to find common ground and to expect it is pure folly… I’d disagree with your final points as well. If you want to creative circumstances wherein people don’t abort pregnancies then your number one priority should be what you gave as number 2 - creating a culture wherein people have the resources support and education necessary to avert unwanted pregnancies. If there were no unwanted pregnancies than the abortion law would then be like that law that requires nyc taxi cab drivers to carry a shovel to take care of horse crap - obsolete. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/47 "2003-07-23T20:48:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RNWebner \* > There is quite a difference between the potential a fertilized egg has of being human and the potential that a single sperm or egg cell has of being human. When an egg is fertilized, it has “officially” started on the path to becoming a human child. If it is left alone, it will develop itself into human being. A sperm cell or an egg cell will not do this. They both lack the tools to become human, and will not develop by themselves if given the chance. A fertilized egg has all of the tools and all of the opportunities, and if you do not interrupt its growth process, it is destined to become human. a fertilized egg might be “farther along” in the sense that it is a node on the path from a sperm or an egg to a human, but as pointed out by others, it still needs things to become a human. as i’ve said before, both things have the potential to be human. in this sense, potential is a binary state. either something has it or it doesn’t. if you still see something that makes a zygote more special in that regard, please elaborate on it, but don’t call it potential. by doing that, you’re implying that we all have a duty to do nothing but reproduce. ---
**Author:** ![Illassit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@Illassit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illassit)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/48 "2003-07-23T21:28:47Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Ramanujan \* > \*\* if you still see something that makes a zygote more special in that regard, please elaborate on it,_\* but don’t call it potential. by doing that, you’re implying that we all have a duty to do nothing but reproduce. \*\*\*\* That is a rather large leap in logic. By stating that a zygote has potential, he is stating the reason for having sex?? That is laughable… I would hold that there is a bigger difference between an egg or a sperm and a zygote than there is between a fetus at nine months and a baby at nine months. ---
**Author:** ![greck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ab992/32.png) [@greck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greck)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/49 "2003-07-23T21:34:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ramanujan \* > \*\*a fertilized egg might be “farther along” in the sense that it is a node on the path from a sperm or an egg to a human, but as pointed out by others, it still needs things to become a human. > > \*\* Or: a human needs things at that stage of life to survive. Still not the point. This is exactly the kind of divisive arguing that keeps both camps from meeting their aims Pro choice people want freedom to make choices Pro life people want pregnancies not to be aborted. These are not mutually exclusive aims. ---
**Author:** ![RNWebner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@RNWebner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RNWebner)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/50 "2003-07-23T21:40:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*I must’ve missed this line, but it’s exactly what I was talking about at the end of my post. In fact, I’d say banning abortion punishes EVERYbody here: it brings an unwanted child into a household and places an burden upon parents who - for reasons physical, emotional, financial, whatever - did not desire a child at that time. First, the fact that a child is unwanted by its parents does not mean that they have no responsibility to take care of it. Even if they do not wish to care for their child permanently, the least that they could do would be to put it up for adoption. > [@](#): > > To call abortion a “punishment” is to completely - intentionally, I guess- miss the point of what it is and what it is intended to do. Are you saying that the point of an abortion is to prevent the parents from being “punished” by having to raise their child? It might not be easy, or fun, but I wouldn’t call raising a kid punishment. People have to learn to accept the consequences of their actions, even if raising a kid is one. > [@](#): > > How do you punish something that is neither alive nor sentient, with only the possibility of becoming a human being? By not allowing it to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/51 "2003-07-23T22:52:24Z")
Look, the stupid arguments about when human life begins are just that…stupid. The obvious truth is that life doesn’t work that way. Every human cell has the potential to become a new human being…given the right environment (an enucleated ovum). Are identical twins one person, or two? Two, right? But when the egg cell was fertilized by a single sperm, there was only one cell. You can take a early zygote and pull it apart and several individual humans will result. If I take a tissue sample of someone and keep it alive in a culture, the tissue is alive, but it isn’t a human life. So declaring that a fertilized ovum is absolutely a human being is not supported. Nothing magical happens when the sperm penetrates the cell wall. Nothing is created. On the other hand, a 1 year old baby is a human being. I know some people advocate allowing infanticide, because they see where I’m heading with this. A baby that is born is entitled to human status, everyone except the morally depraved see this. What exactly is the difference between that baby and a baby one day earlier, when it hasn’t been born? Well, it is hooked up to its mother for life support. But only the most morally depraved would therefore argue that the mother is entitled to kill the baby one second before birth, but should face murder charges one second after birth. If you argue that a woman is entitled to absolute autonomy over her body, we can point out that it is perfectly possible to remove that baby from the mother without killing the baby. This is possible one day before the due date, 1 week before the due date, 1 month before the due date. Two months before the due date? Kind of, but now it is getting difficult. The baby is likely to suffer from health problems if removed at this stage. But in any case, a right to absolute autonomy over one’s body does not neccesarily give one the right to kill another human, if there are alternatives that don’t require deadly force. If someone trespasses on your property, you have the right to make them leave. But you can’t just pull out a gun and shoot someone on your property, you have to ask them to leave first. I don’t think anyone would agree that you have the absolute right to shoot someone as long as they are in your house, although you might have that right under specific circumstances. So it seems to me that a baby should have at the very least the opportunity to be removed alive from a woman who finds it intolerable to continue a pregnancy. If a pregnancy poses a deadly threat to a woman’s life, she has the absolute right to terminate the pregnancy. If there are medical procedures that are neccesary to save her life (such as chemotherapy) she has an absolute right to have those procedures even if they are very likely to kill the baby. But she doesn’t have the right to kill another person unless she has reason to believe that her life is in danger. So we are left in a situation where we can see that a baby is a person, a late term fetus is a person but a human cell is not a person. But what about the middle stages? Can we face the fact that there is no bright line? It doesn’t exist. The non-person cell becomes more and more person-like until it would be perverse to assert that it is not a person. I might feel it is a person at a different stage than you would, but eventually at some point before the baby is born it is a person in the eyes of all morally serious people. And I’m not so dismissive of the concept of implied consent when applied to pregnancy. Obviously any situation of coerced impregnation (ie rape, medical experiments, etc) would give someone an absolute right to stop providing life support for a baby. But it seems to me that in any instance of heterosexual intercourse, one has to be aware that the possibility of conception exists. Sure, we can take steps to reduce the possibility that conception will occur. But just because you got an outcome you didn’t desire is no reason to believe that you have an absolute right to change that outcome. For those who feel a right to sexual autonomy, I would agree. But that doesn’t mean (say) that you can infect someone knowingly with an STD. And there are plenty of ways to have satisfying sex that don’t include heterosexual interourse. Sodomy is now legal in every state in the US, after all. So…if you engage in heterosexual intercourse, you are engaging in a behavior that carries the risk of conception, when there are many other perfectly acceptable substitute behaviors that carry no such risk. I have nothing against heterosexual intercourse, I often prefer it to sodomy. But every time I engage in it, even when using birth control, I know I am taking a risk. So therefore it could be argued that I must be willing to accept the risk that I will have to raise a child if I engage in it. In any case, I don’t think the notion of implied consent can be simply dismissed as ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Illassit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@Illassit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illassit)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/52 "2003-07-24T14:36:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > \*\*Look, the stupid arguments about when human life begins are just that…stupid. The obvious truth is that life doesn’t work that way. \*\* I would strongly disagree with this statement. Babies are surviving at an earlier and earlier age out of the womb. With medical advances continuing, I think that when life begins will only gain more importance. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > \*\* You can take a early zygote and pull it apart and several individual humans will result. \*\* Cite? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > If I take a tissue sample of someone and keep it alive in a culture, the tissue is alive, but it isn’t a human life. So declaring that a fertilized ovum is absolutely a human being is not supported. \*\* Comparing apples to oranges. Or even a cell from my arm to an fertilized ovum… > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \*So…if you engage in heterosexual intercourse, you are engaging in a behavior that carries the risk of conception, when there are many other perfectly acceptable substitute behaviors that carry no such risk. I have nothing against heterosexual intercourse, I often prefer it to sodomy. But every time I engage in it, even when using birth control, I know I am taking a risk. So therefore it could be argued that I must be willing to accept the risk that I will have to raise a child if I engage in it. In any case, I don’t think the notion of implied consent can be simply dismissed as ridiculous. \*\* Ramanajun (sp?) - See? Now this guy is implying that sex is only for procreation. Lemur866- I pointed out the differences I have with you, but I also have to say that I enjoyed reading your post. As a person who sees abortion as a necessary evil in an imperfect world, I agreed with much of what you had to say, just not some bits. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227/53 "2003-07-24T15:31:03Z")
**OP:** > [@](#): > > I think “Pro Lifers” have been arguing so much about the law that we’ve been missing the opportunity to devote needed resources to mitigating the circumstances that make it necessary to have abortions. I’m pro-choice and not much of a compromiser on it, but I’d walk arm and arm with pro-life folks on this kind of initiative. What I want is for women to possess reproductive control: that they be pregnant only when they wish to be pregnant. If we can virtually eliminate the situations where women _become_ pregnant unintentionally, (and do so without impeding women’s right and opportunity to have sex if and when and with whom they are so inclined) that’s going to eliminate most of the problem. I appreciate the attempt to bridge the chasm. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-weve-been-having-the-wrong-argument/190227.md?page=2)